The National Organization for Women (NOW) claims it was the first women’s organization to pass a resolution in favor of liberalizing abortion. NOW founder Betty Friedan openly admitted it was men (Lawrence Lader and Bernard Nathanson) who persuaded her to make abortion part of NOW’s agenda. As a result, abortion drove a wedge within NOW’s membership, resulting in several pro-life members departing the organization.

NOW’s intolerance toward pro-life beliefs drives women away

In 1975, syndicated columnist Nick Thimmesch detailed the dismembership of Karen Lorene Ahern from a NOW chapter in Fresno, California.

“I was hounded out after they learned I was in the pro-life movement,” Lahern told Thimmesch. “They would change meeting places and times without telling me and hassle me at meetings. It’s ironic that I can’t be for equal pay and the other issues and still be against abortion.”

Karen Lorene Ahern ousted by NOW for being prolife

Pro-life feminist on abortion: “These men have women right where they want them”

Pat Goltz joined NOW’s Columbus, Ohio, chapter in 1970 because she opposed the feminist movement being taken over by radicals with a pro-abortion agenda. She wanted to influence members toward a pro-life view.

“I was opposed to them taking a stand in favor of abortion because I didn’t want them corrupting the feminist movement with that because it was so evil…. They weren’t interested,” Goltz told Live Action News.

Goltz became unpopular with NOW leaders after referring to the abortion industry as “baby terminators,” and calling abortion a “male chauvinist rip off.”

The baby terminators argue that abortion gives the woman the right to control her own body, but when men are making millions of dollars from women trying to control their own bodies I say abortion is a male chauvinist rip off. When women call this rip off liberation these men have women right where they want them…

The feminist movement is dedicated to the gaining of rights for minority groups of which the unborn is unquestionably the most helpless and yet I was kicked out of the National Organization for Women (NOW) because I insisted on defending the right to life of these babies.

Goltz’s conflict with NOW was detailed in December 1974 by commentator John D. Loften, Jr. “It is her outspoken opinion that ‘permissive abortion’ kills unborn young women and men and exploits their mothers, that has brought her into conflict with her sisters,” Loften wrote.

“In voicing her pro-life views, Ms. Goltz has run smack into official NOW policy, while not endorsing abortion does support the so-called women’s ‘right to choose.’ So, now, because she has exercised her own right to choose, and chosen to be against abortion, and because she has engaged in such subversive activities as passing out pro-life literature at NOW meetings and seeking to persuade new members to oppose abortion, tonight, an eight member committee will recommend that her membership be revoked.”

Loften scathingly wrote, “In a letter inviting her to her own burning at the stake, prior to the committee having already lighted the fire, Columbus NOW president Erica Scurr reminded Ms. Goltz (emphasis added):

As you know the ‘right to choose’ is a fundamental tenet of the policy of the National Organization for Women. Members may not speak publicly or act politically in contradiction to this policy and simultaneously maintain membership.

Loften, then inquired of NOW’s chapter president how NOW could remove membership based on Goltz’s beliefs.

This is understood in belonging to an organization. If you’re going to belong to them, you’re going to have to support a policy. And if you don’t support them you’re pretty much going to have to keep your mouth shut.

Goltz told Live Action News that she was expelled from NOW after that meeting.

“They voted against me as soon as I left the room. They can’t defend a bad point of view. They have to stifle a good point of view,” Goltz said. “A lot of these women have had abortions and suffered terribly — so they have to get more and more to agree with them so it is justified. At that meeting I defended the rights of unborn women, and they didn’t like it.”

Goltz now refers to pro-abortion feminism as “passé.”

The founding of Feminists For Life

Banishment from NOW did not deter Goltz, who, in 1972, co-founded Feminists for Life (FFL) with Catherine Callaghan.

“Pat and Catherine were deeply disturbed because the women’s movement was caving into the demand of the patriarchy by allowing itself to be used by rich industrialists, the population control movement and the playboy movement….” wrote former FFL president Rachel MacNair.

“They believed that feminist organizations were failing to provide viable alternatives to abortion for individual women and abandoning them to abortionists and abortion referral services who would exploit their misery.”

“Pro-life feminism is the wave of the future and its time has come. People are coming to realize that abortion, which kills innocent children, is not in the best interests of women either,” Goltz told the Athens Messenger in 1974. Apparently many women joined Goltz in her view, as the paper was forced to admit that within just months of their incorporation, Feminists for Life had encompassed members in 30 states and several countries.

Thanks to the courage of many pro-life feminists like Goltz and Ahern, the pro-life movement has flourished.

This article is reprinted with permission. The original appeared here at Live Action News.

To the modern feminist movement, the National Organization for Women (NOW) purported to be an advocate for women in the same way that the NAACP was for the Black community. But deep in the foundation of NOW lay another agenda that would eventually drive a large number of women away: legalizing abortion. Today, NOW claims it was the first national organization to endorse the legalization of abortion, adopting a resolution on the “repeal of abortion laws” in 1967. But the group was founded in June of 1966 by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan, author of the 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, which never even mentioned abortion.

While Friedan stated publicly over the years that she was in full support of abortion, she was not in favor of it personally. In 2000, Friedan admitted in her memoir, “Ideologically, I was never for abortion,” adding, “Motherhood is a value to me, and even today abortion is not.”

Betty Friedan and Richard Graham(Photo: The Sisterhood, by Marcia Cohen)

While Friedan identified injustices facing women in her day, she unfortunately ended up promoting the idea that women could gain “rights” on the backs of their dead children. “Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings,” Friedan told the New York Times in 1966, adding that women should enjoy the “equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which is their right….” Friedan later claimed that “the personhood of women” was what NOW was all about.

“Friedan has saved the vote over the abortion resolution for last,” Browder writes of that meeting at the Washington, D.C., Mayflower Hotel. “Without warning, she suddenly shocks many delegates, including Marguerite Rawalt, by belligerently pressing for full repeal of all abortion laws.”

Minutes published online show that at 2:00 p.m., Friedan told members:

The purpose of this afternoon meeting is to discuss and vote upon two resolutions: A resolution urging the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to approve the Equal Rights amendment and to call the Ninetieth Congress to approve this amendment, for the submission to the States for ratification.

And a resolution endorsing the principle that it is a basic right of every woman to control her reproductive life, and that those laws preventing abortion should be repealed….

Rawalt, mentioned above, was a retired IRS attorney who served as a 1961 appointee to President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women. According to Browder, Rawalt had “serious reservations” about NOW endorsing abortion because she believed NOW should avoid controversial issues.

She was not alone.

One member noted that if NOW added abortion to its “Bill of Rights,” Catholic members would quit. Another member declared she was “against murder.” Some suggested the issue should be left to local chapters, while another member stated, “We must be cautious. We don’t want to be considered a NUT group.”

Friedan later acknowledged the opposition, telling a NARAL audience in 1989, “When I wrote the statement of purpose in NOW, I was going to include the right to abortion. And I was talked out of it, probably rightly. For heaven’s sake, we were doing this controversial thing…. There were many founders of NOW: Catholic nuns, very militant women… one respected their religious values – and they explained to me that this was too controversial and it might split the women’s movement.”

Browder says reasonable voices were drowned out by students and radicals who “ha[d] shown up in unexpected numbers to cast their votes for abortion.”

The first resolution was put to a vote. It failed (Yes: 32/No 42). Then, according to Browder, a second abortion-supporting statement was proposed. And, despite what Browder described as “bitter controversy,” that proposed abortion resolution passed with a vote of 57-14.

Friedan said 150 people attended the conference — yet only 71 voted. Browder was quick to note that the math did not add up: “What happened to the other thirty-four votes? Did those people abstain? Did they get tired of the fight and go home? The minutes of the meeting don’t say…. A great mystery remains.”

The final proposal to NOW’s “Bill of Rights” was published the following year, stating:

NOW endorses the principle that it is a basic right of every woman to control her reproductive life, and therefore NOW supports the furthering of the sexual revolution of our century by pressing for widespread sex education, provision of birth control information and contraceptives, and urges that all laws penalizing abortion be repealed.

Abortion quickly became a primary focus for NOW, which disturbed NOW’s founding vice president, Richard Graham. When he died in 2007, the New York Times mentioned his outspoken criticism, describing him as “publicly critical” of NOW, noting how he faulted “what he saw as its emphasis on abortion rights… at the expense of more general issues like child care and health care.”

Richard Graham objects to NOW’s abortion focus

So if Friedan was really not in favor of abortion, what drove her to push this radical agenda? This will be discussed in future articles.

This article is reprinted with permission. The original appeared here at Live Action News.